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"I think I could keep you here forever."
A voice sounds through the air, between clouds and darkness. It's what the world is like, for Gabriel, nowadays. Everything seems like clouds and darkness, even though he's certainly not falling, falling away from Home, brothers, forgive me. The youngest archangel, seventh brother, smiles. He's barely a man, stubble definitely growing slowly on his chin and cheeks. He's young enough to have in his words, in his voice and in his eyes, this little spark of innocence.
Even if his gaze is tainted by fate, blood and fear. He's a stained burning light. A lighthouse in the fog.
A flame, burning in a dark, thick night.
"You couldn't keep me here forever." The archangel answers, shifting. He doesn't need to look on his left to know who's there. He can feel his breath, still imagine his kisses from earlier, on his body. He can feel his fingertips tracing soft scars between his shoulder blades. One, two. Three four. He stops before he can trace the last two, now long gone.
"What do you mean? Of course I could."
"You're getting sentimental."
"Or possessive."
The room where they are lying down is small: a large bed occupies most of it, green and golden sheets, green pillows. A window on the west wall shows the immensity of the dark sky, the raging sea near and the stars, shining around the moon. The walls are made of stone, so seems to be the floor, under large faded carpets. In a corner, a fireplace is warming the air.
Their breaths are short, their skin glow of a thin sweat. Gabriel, his face hiding in a pillow, breathes slowly the scent of their previous love.
Love.
The word makes him smile.
"Eh, Crowley."
His name makes him snicker, inside. It sounds like something you'd choose after a few drinks, around a table, in a bar where no one ever comes.
"What do you think of us?"
Gabriel waits for the answer. Dim candlelight dances on the skin of his back, tracing shadows of his four golden wings - ghost of a shiny past, purity roughly ducktaped onto a body of lies and weaknesses.
His companion, because lover isn't for them, turns his cold eyes to him.
Dim candlelight dances on the skin of the Archangel, as he waits for an answer.
"I think we're great, Gabriel."
His words are hesitant. Enochian is soft, abrupt and powerful, between his lips, but yet it appeals the youngest angel more than anything else. The words suit the man. Soft, abrupt yet powerful.
"What do you mean, great?"
Words can be useless. But the golden-haired man is not satisfied by a kiss on his temple, a hand ruffling his hair and a chuckle in his ear. There's this need, deep down, burried in his stomach : this need that fills up his throat and guts, pressing his heart against his chest - the human body is a real mess, when you want something -, this need hurting him.
He looks up from his pillow, the scent of fire and sex mixing around them. Stretching his arm, he grabs a lollipop that he puts into his mouth.
"What's the flavor, this time?"
"Shut up and answer me," The young man asks, rolling to rest on his back.
"What do you want me to answer? That we're in love?" The demon huffs, pocking on the wooden stick out of Gabriel's mouth.
"You know there's no love for us."
It's not a love story.
"So, what flavor?" Crowley asks again, earning a gentle slap on his head, a laugh and an archangel leaving the bed.
Outside, it's starting to snow. Gabriel walks around the room, appreciating the feeling of his naked skin endlessly heat up by candles and fire.
If it's not love, Gabriel looks for a perfect word.
He has met the man centuries ago, when he was only starting as a crossroads demon. It was a suffocating night, full of promises, blood and death, in this country that used to rule the world once. The angel was a fugitive, nothing more. Running away from his home, running away from mankind. He was purity, in the streets of Venice, a burning sun in a torn vessel, looking for something or someone to hold onto. Desperately alone, needing to talk, to see.
Then, a crossroad.
Fear. Need. Probably glory. Hate, maybe. Survival, mostly.
A shout, to my Father. A shout, for him to see me again.
But Crowley was the only one that came.
Gabriel runs his fingers over his golden body, in the dim light. Silk and velvet under his fingertips. Decades, centuries, and he's still the same.
His partner has known, from the start, what he needed. The price was not the same: angels don't have a soul to sell.
Gabriel smirks, as he remembers the pain in his back when he accepted. He remembers his wings falling on the ground, the Grace running along them, trying to fix them back.
But there's no one to fix, nothing to save.
He has sacrificed a set of wings for his vessel.
Pride. Hate. Glory, maybe. Blood and grace.
Was I so pure, then?
Gabriel shivers as he throws his lollipop stick into the fire. A hand runs on his body, caressing his shoulders along with the soft lighting.
Dim candlelight dances on the skin of his back, smooth, unaltered, perfect if perfection was something allowed to humanity, velvet under fingertips as Crowley traces the shadows, hills and rivers.
When the archangel turns to look at him, he knows.
It's not a love story.
He places a soft kiss over his lips. A kiss strangely tasting like arsenic.
It's not a love story.
It's not a love story. He understands it, now, as they press against each other, looking without any chance to fill, for a second that's supposed to last for eternity, a void in their head.
It's not a love story.
It's their story. The story of a need, of their fights, of their games. It's the story of their need, burning up Gabriel's wings, rushing through Crowley's veins. It's feeling drawn to purity, to the beautiful horror they are to each other. It's a story of depending of a smile, yet fearing to see it appear.
It's not a love story, because love cannot exist for them.
Gabriel can’t change that.
It's not a love story, but as the Archangel stands up slowly, in the middle of their nap, he wishes it could.
Because love always leave a memory behind. Need only leaves a hole in a chest, that can be filled by something, someone else.
But there's no love, after all.
It's not a love story.
It's not a love story: it's the forbidden thrill, the stupidness of the thing, the curl of his smile as he waves away one last time.
Promising to come back.
But the taste on his lover's lips gives the trick away.
Gabriel could say farewell, tell him he's sorry, as he disappears. Crowley could hold him back, tell him it's foolish, tell him he's mad.
Tell him he'll mourn him, in those enochian words he'll never forget.
They could stay together.
They could have this life, safe, powerful, exhalting, together. Laugh at the world and survive again, together.
But it's not a love story.